"You have to be ready to make an adjustment" - Joe Lauzon on Charles Oliveira being stripped of the UFC lightweight title
Longtime UFC veteran Joe Lauzon has put forth his take on Charles Oliveira’s historic weight miss at UFC 274. Oliveira was stripped of his UFC lightweight title after he weighed in at 155.5 pounds at the official UFC 274 weigh-ins. He was 0.5 pounds over the 155-pound lightweight title bout limit.
Oliveira became the first UFC champion to be stripped of their title due to missing weight. Speaking to Ariel Helwani on The MMA Hour, Lauzon addressed this and stated:
“I think it s**ks. But, I mean, what do you do? How do you go and make an exception for that, right? You know that you’re supposed to make ’55 on the nose. I don’t know when they check their weight. They could’ve checked their weight at 5 am and then just not worried about it, right?"
He also added:
"But I think you have to be ready. You have to be ready to make an adjustment. If I was half pound over, I would’ve made the extra weight. I was not super-dehydrated. Maybe this is a cautionary tale. Don’t be so freakin’ big. Don’t have such hard weight cuts. This is the reality of it.”
‘J-Lau’ highlighted that he generally checks his weight about 4-5 times from when he wakes up to the official weigh-ins, which helps him avoid any weigh-in errors.
Lauzon also addressed the weighing scale controversy, as Charles Oliveira’s team and a few other fighters alleged that the calibration of the UFC’s scale was off and that it adversely affected their weight cuts. Lauzon indicated that fighters must carry their respective personal scales as well, so they can keep checking their weight.
Watch Joe Lauzon’s complete conversation with Ariel Helwani in the video below:
Joe Rogan calls for Islam Makhachev to face Charles Oliveira for lightweight title
Joe Lauzon was scheduled to fight Donald Cerrone in a lightweight bout at UFC 274. Unfortunately, Cerrone suffered from food poisoning on the day of the fight. The fight was resultantly canceled, and it’s currently unclear as to whether it’ll be rescheduled.
Meanwhile, Oliveira faced Justin Gaethje in the headlining fight of UFC 274. Since Oliveira missed weight but Gaethje came through, only he was eligible to win the UFC lightweight title in their fight. Oliveira ended up beating Gaethje via first-round submission to become the No.1 contender for the lightweight title.
Charles Oliveira taps out Justin Gaethje in the first round and takes his win streak to 11 in a row! 🙌
#UFC274 https://t.co/8lKjzylY8p
UFC president Dana White later suggested that Charles Oliveira will likely fight the winner of a potential Islam Makhachev vs. Beneil Dariush matchup for the vacant lightweight title next.
However, White also revealed that UFC commentator and widely-revered MMA analyst Joe Rogan has requested him to book the much-discussed Oliveira-Makhachev matchup instead to determine the new lightweight champion.
White still wants to make Makhachev vs. Dariush, but says that Joe Rogan stopped him in the hall tonight and told him not to.
White says Makhachev vs. Dariush would determine the #1 contender.